Tuesday, April 22, 2008

She isn't a sex kitten any more, and unlike Cranmer I'm not referring to her looks. Cranmer is sympathetic:

... the 73-year-old Ms Bardot, who was evidently quite beautiful in her day, is being prosecuted for ‘inciting racial hatred’, even though Islam is not a race. But such a minor technicality appears to present no hindrance to the zealous prosecutors of Paris. Under the Napoleonic system, there is an uneasy fusion of the judiciary with the legislature which is rapidly developing into an EU-wide ‘corpus juris’. [...]Cranmer thinks that Ms Bardot should counter-sue for harassment, or take her case to the European Court of Human Rights. His Grace would be more than happy to begin a fund to help defray the costs.

Bardot is but one small crab in that fetid European cesspool of politics, but the interesting point beyond her own person is that in this instance, every party involved is equally deserving of contempt.

The estimable frogman also refers to a quarrel between various of the blogosphere's biggest names in the anti-Jihad ring, something I had been meaning to get round to myself. Concern over Islamism does not, and should not, lead to a sanguine attitude to various fascist and white supremacist groups that have piggy-backed onto the issue.

It is her connections to these that makes Ms Bardot less deserving of support than the Archbishop suggests.

BB may have joined the white supremecists, but that should be beside the point. Everyone is entitled to the true rights of freedom of opinion, freedom of expression and freedom of religion. I would extend presumption of innocence even to Uncle Joe, Adolf and even Mao himself.